:00:26. > :00:30.Hello and welcome to Dateline London. Does the British Budget
:00:30. > :00:33.gouge grandmothers to mollycoddle millionaires? What impact will the
:00:33. > :00:41.horrific killings in Toulouse have on the French elections? And can
:00:41. > :00:48.sanctions really work against Iran and Syria? My guests are Marc Roche
:00:48. > :00:51.of Le Monde, Mustapha Karkouti, Catherine Mayer of Time magazine
:00:51. > :00:54.and Ned Temko of the Observer. The British finance minister,
:00:54. > :01:01.Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, this week offered a budget
:01:01. > :01:04.statement which sounded like a review of last week's newspapers.
:01:04. > :01:07.Much of what he announced had been leaked in advance, which left him
:01:07. > :01:10.facing headlines that he was robbing pensioners to give a tax
:01:10. > :01:13.break to millionaires. Is the criticism deserved - and where does
:01:13. > :01:16.this budget leave the Coalition Government? It was a bit odd,
:01:16. > :01:25.really, it was like a repeat programme! We had heard it all
:01:25. > :01:30.before. It was even better the second time! The last few budgets
:01:30. > :01:33.have been like that, even the last Labour Budget, that was leaked.
:01:34. > :01:38.They lead to all the good stuff, and only the bad stuff came out on
:01:38. > :01:43.Budget day. It do you not think that is a weird strategy? Wouldn't
:01:43. > :01:49.it be better to leak the bad stuff? That is the tradition. I don't
:01:49. > :01:53.understand that. I think that part was accident in confidence, and for
:01:53. > :01:57.the first time, they have a coalition government, so you can no
:01:57. > :02:01.longer have a Chancellor who would traditionally locked himself in the
:02:01. > :02:07.ring, if he was friendly with the promise to, which wasn't the case
:02:07. > :02:14.with Gordon Brown and Prime Minister -- with the Prime Minister.
:02:14. > :02:21.Now it is two parties bartering, so more people in the room. But after
:02:21. > :02:25.the Budget itself, -- as after the Budget itself, you have to look at
:02:25. > :02:31.it economically and politically. Economically, the government will
:02:31. > :02:39.be fairly for despite -- a fairly to despite that they won the main
:02:39. > :02:42.argument. It comes out between 24 hours, IFS says this is what the
:02:42. > :02:48.Budget does. They more or less backed up the government's
:02:48. > :02:53.narrative, which is that the changes to the amount that
:02:53. > :02:57.pensioners can deduct without paying tax is going up a little bit,
:02:57. > :03:03.modestly, all it will do is balance out, because most of the austerity
:03:03. > :03:06.has been taken by others, young people, it soon to be welfare
:03:06. > :03:11.beneficiaries, and the other thing is that this reduction of tax on
:03:11. > :03:19.the rich comes against the context of it not raising much money anyway.
:03:19. > :03:22.The problem is the politics, and Labour is hoping that this
:03:22. > :03:29.narrative of abusing a little old ladies, Robin Hood in reverse, to
:03:29. > :03:35.give tax breaks to bankers, that will stick. It is to -- too early
:03:35. > :03:39.to know. The IFS did broadly back up the government's narrative, but
:03:40. > :03:44.even the word grannies, everybody loves their grandparents, it is so
:03:44. > :03:48.difficult for any government to do anything which seems to penalise
:03:48. > :03:52.the old at all. Absolutely, especially with the ageing
:03:52. > :03:58.population, and those are people who vote, but I think it is an
:03:58. > :04:02.extraordinary budget. All over Europe, they tried to increase the
:04:02. > :04:07.access, the Socialist candidate to the presidency said he would go to
:04:07. > :04:12.75 per tend for the richest, and in Britain, they diminish tax for the
:04:12. > :04:16.rich, not only can they pay even less tax, and I cannot say because
:04:16. > :04:22.they will pay less tax is that they will be more entrepreneurs, which
:04:22. > :04:26.is the entrepreneur. Part of it is based say they thought this would
:04:26. > :04:31.raise 6 billion, it is raising maybe 110 million, because if you
:04:31. > :04:38.tax too much, people will find ways of avoiding it. But the rich anyway
:04:38. > :04:43.will find a way to avoid it! The problem is that because of the cat,
:04:43. > :04:48.the tax authority cannot do their job, so when the government says
:04:48. > :04:52.they will fight fiscal evasion, people not paying taxes, not paying
:04:52. > :04:58.taxes on nannies, they cannot do it, because at the tax authorities are
:04:58. > :05:03.not up to the job, they don't have enough staff. So it is a win-win
:05:03. > :05:13.for the rich and it is a loss last of for the poor. What did you make
:05:13. > :05:16.of it? Everybody in America will see the system seems to penalise
:05:16. > :05:22.the old. Older people are more likely to vote Conservative than
:05:22. > :05:28.young people. So that was a very interesting choice. I tend to think
:05:29. > :05:35.that the granny tax... I was bareback Wendy budget was delivered,
:05:35. > :05:41.I heard the frenetic briefing afterwards, -- I was there when the
:05:41. > :05:48.war budget was delivered. I spoke to Tory MPs, and I was saying, why
:05:48. > :05:54.do you think this happened? They were saying, it is a problem. I
:05:54. > :05:59.agree with a view that budgets work on several different levels. So it
:05:59. > :06:03.is clear that there are some things that they did which might make
:06:03. > :06:07.sense in terms of how you go about collecting taxes, or how you go
:06:07. > :06:14.about attending the balance your budget, but they don't make
:06:14. > :06:19.political sense. -- attempting to balance. But whether what they will
:06:19. > :06:23.gain from it offsets the political price of doing it, the granny tax
:06:23. > :06:28.is one where I think they stumbled into wit. I literally think they
:06:28. > :06:31.didn't see that coming. It is particularly problematic not only
:06:31. > :06:36.because of the ageing population, but this is a time when they are
:06:36. > :06:43.also doing sensible things about making people work longer, but for
:06:43. > :06:50.me it is allowing people to work longer! That is a very different
:06:50. > :06:55.point about the not seen it coming. Perhaps it suggests a why so many
:06:56. > :07:03.prime ministers like to have somebody who worked on a tabloid
:07:03. > :07:06.newspaper working for them. Can I just say an interesting version of
:07:06. > :07:10.that, which I heard about anticipating what the tabloids will
:07:10. > :07:15.think, somebody told me the other night, watching Alastair Campbell
:07:15. > :07:21.in action in his early days, when Tony Blair was going to go to a
:07:21. > :07:28.music awards, and Alastair Campbell asked which of the different band
:07:28. > :07:36.were going to be there, and he was told all of the bans, U2, Bowler...
:07:36. > :07:45.He mustn't be seen with a Blur. He had already seen the headline, he
:07:45. > :07:55.prevented it happening. Being the coalition, a lot of people are all
:07:55. > :07:56.
:07:56. > :08:00.dead now, you have at the bottom, you have like a pyramid, but
:08:00. > :08:09.surprisingly, the commentary after the Budget was that even some of
:08:09. > :08:12.the Conservative media were not enchanted with that. To sell a
:08:12. > :08:20.budget to the population, I think it is going to be a very difficult
:08:20. > :08:24.task. There is one caveat. Unlike previous government, these
:08:24. > :08:28.coalition partners are joined at the hip, and there is every
:08:28. > :08:34.expectation this is a five-year government, we are just into it,
:08:34. > :08:37.all that will matter in the end, as in the US, is how does the economy
:08:37. > :08:42.look when we get close to an election? We will forget the
:08:42. > :08:48.details. The grand narrative will be, which of these guys would you
:08:48. > :08:53.trust with your economy? Although it is a budget which is meant to
:08:53. > :08:57.deal with the economy, it is a political Budget. They have a
:08:57. > :09:04.longer game to play. It I agreed with that, but I'm not sure it is
:09:04. > :09:11.working, I think we may have seen a real sea change... A horrible
:09:12. > :09:17.phrase to use, but what I think with the Occupied movement, and
:09:17. > :09:21.this grass roots revulsion against entrenched privilege, I think that
:09:21. > :09:26.gives the Tories are really big problem with the narrative, even if
:09:26. > :09:29.the economy is doing well. If they cannot shake their image of being
:09:29. > :09:37.the people who do things for their friends but not for the wider
:09:37. > :09:44.population... But the economy is not doing fantastically well.
:09:44. > :09:49.Whereas the growth? 2%, inflation is diminishing, but slowly. And
:09:49. > :09:54.also, the provision for the deficit is still very big. So we are just
:09:54. > :09:59.half way. The government has two years to get it together. Just one
:09:59. > :10:03.final, quick point, after a couple of days a very bad headlines, the
:10:03. > :10:07.government announced it may introduce a minimum pricing for
:10:07. > :10:12.alcohol, 40 p a unit, which wiped the bad headlines off the front
:10:12. > :10:17.pages. Do you think that is really a flyer? I spoke to one MP who said
:10:17. > :10:25.that his constituents do not want to pay more for the glass of wine
:10:25. > :10:32.in the evening because of a few yobs. His constituents will be fine,
:10:32. > :10:39.because it will be these cheap, 50 p pints of lager in big paper bags,
:10:39. > :10:48.rather than some vintage from Bordeaux! So it is baulk they will
:10:49. > :10:54.work on. It was certainly not stop MPs! -- it will certainly not stop
:10:54. > :10:58.MPs! We will leave it there. The killings in Toulouse of French
:10:58. > :11:00.soldiers and at a Jewish school were apparently the work of a lone
:11:00. > :11:04.al-Qaeda sympathiser - though exactly who trained him and for
:11:04. > :11:06.what still is not clear. With just a few weeks to go before president
:11:06. > :11:14.Sarkozy faces the voters, what impact will this have on French
:11:14. > :11:17.voters, and on France's various ethnic and religious groups?
:11:17. > :11:22.Terrible happenings in Toulouse, but does it have a political
:11:22. > :11:28.impact? It can go both ways. The first explanation, Sarkozy was good
:11:28. > :11:35.at crisis management, good at speaking to the nation and going in
:11:35. > :11:39.to reassuring the nation, and also having words, which were very
:11:39. > :11:42.important for Muslim compatriots, that this was a loner, and it is
:11:42. > :11:46.very important that there is no retaliation and there is a national
:11:46. > :11:52.unity. That could favour him, because whenever you have the
:11:52. > :11:57.disorder and tragedy, the right- wing -- the right wins. A big chunk
:11:57. > :12:03.of the public opinion thinks that if, by his sticking to the National
:12:03. > :12:09.Front point of view on immigration, and too many foreigners, and also
:12:09. > :12:12.the war of civilisation, all he has said has created a climate where
:12:12. > :12:17.that sort of thing could happen. All this together can go the other
:12:17. > :12:23.way. Succour to's problem is simple - he might do well in the first
:12:23. > :12:29.round, in the second round, he has no reservoir of boats. It will be
:12:29. > :12:36.the left that has that, and his opponent has been very low key with
:12:36. > :12:42.that. I still think they will win. What do you think will be the
:12:42. > :12:47.impact of this? Politicians have to be very careful with making
:12:47. > :12:52.political capital out of tragedies. On the other hand, people do tend
:12:52. > :12:56.to rally around the leader, whether that is. What I find interesting is
:12:56. > :13:03.that it is a battle of narratives, it is a question of whether the
:13:03. > :13:13.lesson for France is that these are complicated issues, they are issues
:13:13. > :13:16.of religion verses secular life, ethnic relations among Muslim a
:13:16. > :13:24.first generation a North African communities, the Jewish community.
:13:24. > :13:28.That is one narrative. The other narrative, like post 9/11, is this
:13:28. > :13:33.is an issue of the terror. This it is obviously the Sarkozy preference,
:13:33. > :13:37.because then it becomes an issue of personal security, of national
:13:37. > :13:42.unity, and in a way, it is a question of which are these
:13:42. > :13:46.narratives wins out. You know France very well, I was talking to
:13:46. > :13:50.a Moroccan friend the other day and it's partly here and partly there,
:13:50. > :13:56.that he was worried that there would be a backlash against all
:13:56. > :14:03.Muslims. Yes, they raise the fear or within the community, even in
:14:03. > :14:11.this country, by the way, because they consider that a lot of
:14:11. > :14:20.Mohammed Merah's actions -- a lot of Mohammed Merahs do exist in the
:14:20. > :14:26.West, they are lower for -- lurking somewhere. Certainly, unemployment,
:14:26. > :14:36.deprivation, whatever you want... He was a criminal. He was, and he
:14:36. > :14:41.killed and North African. A French soldier, he killed him as well. So
:14:41. > :14:47.it was perplexing for everybody. What the hell this follow really
:14:47. > :14:57.wanted? If you look at the victims, they are not... They don't belong
:14:57. > :15:05.
:15:05. > :15:15.Like any Western European country, they are from all backgrounds.
:15:15. > :15:16.
:15:16. > :15:22.believe this is lurking in the West, that he had been under surveillance
:15:22. > :15:28.for two years, that is really shocking. What do you make of this?
:15:28. > :15:34.A I agreed that there is a kind of lurking danger, but there are a
:15:34. > :15:39.series of lurking dangers. Look at what happened in Norway, somebody
:15:39. > :15:45.he is coming to trial now, we will learn more, but it is somebody who
:15:45. > :15:55.was animated by a set of ideas, some of them more obviously crazy
:15:55. > :15:55.
:15:55. > :16:02.than others. It is very easy to cause mass destruction, very easy
:16:02. > :16:08.for people to because mass destruction, very easy for people
:16:08. > :16:15.to use the Internet to claim for their actions some greater
:16:15. > :16:21.political or moral significance. is not easy to killed... it is easy
:16:21. > :16:29.to kill unarmed children, but is not difficult. I understand that it
:16:29. > :16:35.is politically expedient to except Muhammad Merav's idea that he is
:16:35. > :16:41.affiliated to Al-Qaeda. There are any number of splinter groups and
:16:41. > :16:48.people who could call themselves inspired by it, but it isn't a
:16:48. > :16:56.coherent group. Certainly what he represents is nothing like that.
:16:56. > :17:03.is interesting to notice that he tried to justify his actions by
:17:03. > :17:07.revenge for the children of Gaza. It is important the reaction of the
:17:07. > :17:11.Palestinians themselves, the prime minister came out and criticise
:17:11. > :17:17.that action and called on the people to stop using this issue for
:17:17. > :17:25.this kind of criminal action. they are not the people who will
:17:25. > :17:30.here. The problem is that is why... he was addressing the rest of
:17:30. > :17:35.society. He was worried that political reaction, racist reaction
:17:35. > :17:41.in the West could be... it is very important to make the right noises.
:17:41. > :17:51.Going back to the French election, that is where you were in what
:17:51. > :17:51.
:17:52. > :17:56.Nicholas so cosy -- Nicolas Sarkozy has done in his political way of
:17:56. > :18:03.dealing with this. All around Europe you see politicians moving
:18:03. > :18:08.very hard to the right on immigration issues. In an economic
:18:08. > :18:15.crisis it is very often an easy road. What I find important is that
:18:15. > :18:21.we have seen at France that I don't see very often, which we had a
:18:21. > :18:30.little bits in 1998 with the World Cup victory, which is a France
:18:30. > :18:33.together United. This is very rare at a time what division and the
:18:33. > :18:42.electoral campaign. France is multicultural. 10 % of the
:18:42. > :18:47.population is Muslim. It is integrated. There are many more
:18:47. > :18:53.than in Britain mixed marriages between Muslims and Christians and
:18:53. > :19:00.France. From that horror, there is an image coming off quite a
:19:00. > :19:09.cohesive new multicultural France. Diplomatic news this week it onto
:19:09. > :19:13.intractable problems, Syria and Iran, so does putting sanctions on
:19:13. > :19:18.governments prove any results? It is all very well to say that
:19:18. > :19:24.President Assad's why should not be able to shop in London, but she has
:19:24. > :19:28.a British passport so she can do it anyway. To these things do anything
:19:28. > :19:36.other than come the conscience of the outside world? They leave a
:19:36. > :19:42.very important impact on the Syrians themselves. When the
:19:42. > :19:47.Syrians welcomed its President as said Junior, they did have hoped
:19:47. > :19:57.they thought he was a reformer. With the wife coming from Britain
:19:57. > :19:57.
:19:57. > :20:01.that increased be expectations. Certainly it increased the
:20:01. > :20:08.expectation amongst the Syrian community in this country as well.
:20:08. > :20:16.Now it has created disappointment, no doubt. All through the last 10
:20:16. > :20:22.or 11 months, Syrians have been trying to find an explanation for
:20:22. > :20:27.her position in supporting her husband. Until the revelation about
:20:27. > :20:33.e-mails on shopping and all of that. So some people have said that for
:20:33. > :20:39.the wives of some maiden its eastern leaders she is quite modest
:20:40. > :20:47.and her shopping! It seems that now the explanation days, which is
:20:47. > :20:51.quite feasible, but no matter how decent you are, once you find
:20:51. > :20:59.yourself in at corruption Web and you are caught in its, you can't
:20:59. > :21:07.get out of it. I think this is probably the case with her and her
:21:07. > :21:11.family. With the sanctions, do you think sanctions do produce results?
:21:11. > :21:17.They produce results. Whether it is the one you want it is another
:21:17. > :21:22.matter. At the moment because everyone is so terrified that
:21:22. > :21:27.Israel will steam in and attacked Iran, anything that is not Israel
:21:27. > :21:33.attacking Iran is better than the alternative. The sanctions
:21:33. > :21:37.introduced have already pushed fuel prices higher, so we're introducing
:21:37. > :21:42.sanctions that are going to deepen unrest and some of her own
:21:42. > :21:46.countries. Another aspect of sanctions since -- he is you never
:21:46. > :21:50.know if it'll strengthen the opposition you want to strengthen,
:21:50. > :21:54.or put additional pressure on it. Whether it will cause suffering to
:21:54. > :21:59.the people who are already suffering. Sanctions are really
:21:59. > :22:05.difficult tool, but they are preferable clearly to a bombing at
:22:05. > :22:10.the hell out to people. You could remind us of how sanctions worked
:22:10. > :22:18.in Cuba or in Zimbabwe, for example. I don't know how these particular
:22:18. > :22:26.sanctions will work. My guess is that they are better than the
:22:26. > :22:29.alternative. It is certainly better than the alternative. In my
:22:29. > :22:34.experience of a foreign correspondent in similar situations,
:22:34. > :22:42.the work more than we think. They were generally because these are
:22:42. > :22:49.close-knit circles. It is not just President Assad's family, one of
:22:49. > :22:54.the reasons there was the shift from President Hassan Be Younger to
:22:54. > :23:04.him looking very much look like his father is that the real power was
:23:04. > :23:05.
:23:05. > :23:10.the security services, the army, other security apparatus. The
:23:10. > :23:15.message intended in sanctions like this history we won't convince Mr
:23:15. > :23:19.and Mrs Azad, but if you are in that second echelon, the clock is
:23:19. > :23:25.ticking. This is probably not a great career move to stick with
:23:25. > :23:33.these people. On that level it probably works. It takes time.
:23:33. > :23:39.only other thing I would say about Israel and Iran, I think you are
:23:39. > :23:46.right about that, this is not just an issue for Israel and Iran. There
:23:46. > :23:51.is a consensus that and new Kuala armed air ran is probably not a
:23:51. > :23:58.great idea. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, other countries are not entirely
:23:58. > :24:03.relaxed about it. The point about sanctions, it is partly frustration.
:24:03. > :24:08.Nobody has got any better ideas about Syria. Absolutely. I think
:24:08. > :24:16.the financial sanctions were quite well because at the moment they
:24:16. > :24:21.have a terrible time to get their transactions through the bank's.
:24:21. > :24:31.They import refined oil. That is their real weak points as far as
:24:31. > :24:34.
:24:34. > :24:39.Iran is concerned. Once they have problems... at the was a real
:24:40. > :24:44.pressure. That the West can continue, pressurising the
:24:44. > :24:48.financial sector. We have no armament to do anything on the oil
:24:48. > :24:56.because of what Catherine said, we don't want to have the oil at the
:24:56. > :25:02.pump going through the roof. It is coming in America as well. They
:25:02. > :25:10.have bizarre at 30 has diminished over the last couple of decades. In
:25:10. > :25:17.its place another economy has risen by the revolution, they have their
:25:17. > :25:23.own economy. But the desire is still strong, no doubt, but it is
:25:23. > :25:32.not absolute power. It is sharing it with another. As far as the
:25:32. > :25:38.nuclear issue, the trouble with Israel and Iran is currently really
:25:38. > :25:48.Binyamin Netanyahu to, because he wanted the world's to take his
:25:48. > :25:49.
:25:49. > :25:53.points. He is not listening to the rest. I happen to see someone very
:25:53. > :25:57.close -- happened to see someone very close to him a week before
:25:57. > :26:03.that and the problem with interpreting things like this is